Ready-to-teach Christmas-themed Lessons and Activities for P-2

While Christmas might be still eight weeks away, for some of you, the school year will finish well before that, and I know many are already planning your Christmas and holiday-themed lessons and activities.

Here at readilearn, we ensure that learning continues when the Christmas fun begins.

Who celebrates Christmas?

Before you begin Christmas-related activities, it is a good idea to conduct a survey to find out which children do and do not celebrate Christmas with their families. While you may already know this, the survey can be an interesting way to begin discussions of different cultural traditions celebrated by children in your class.

These discussions should always be respectful and inclusive. It is essential for children, and all of us, to see that what we have in common is more important than any differences.

How many school days until Christmas?

This calendar helps to count down the last fifteen days of term and provides an opportunity for children to present information about their family’s traditions. The Countdown Calendar can be used to countdown to Christmas or, for inclusivity, to the holidays.

Inclusive friendship trees

Build self-esteem and confidence as well as friendship skills with Friendship trees. They are easy to make and are a great way to ensure the children keep thinking friendly thoughts about each other.

Children make their own friendship tree and, every day, they write anonymous positive messages of friendship and affirmation to place in each other’s trees. At the end of the term, children take their trees home to read and enjoy over the holidays.

A template for the trees, examples of friendship messages, and editable message strips for distribution to the children are also available.

Another fun way to encourage the children to work together on a joint project of which they can be proud is to create a 3D classroom tree display. While children are proud of their individual contribution, they recognise the importance of everyone working together. The tree becomes a visible reminder of the importance of team work. It can be the focus of a beautiful classroom display.

Literacy

 

There are so many wonderful Christmas picture books and stories available to read to the children that I could not possibly name them all. I’m sure you and your children already have many favourites, and your librarian will be able to suggest others. New Christmas stories are added to our bookshelves every year. Those shown above are just a few of my favourites.

Who’s Hiding at Christmas is an interactive digital story to read on the interactive whiteboard. The repetitive structure encourages children to join in with the reading.

Familiar Christmas characters are hiding behind the Christmas tree. Children select baubles to reveal clues and the star to reveal choices. When a correct response is chosen, the character responds with a brief action when tapped. Children can join with the characters in singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” as a surprise on the final page.

The resource may also be used as a stimulus for the children’s own writing and a printable template to assist with formatting is provided.

There is a range of other resources that support learning based on the Who’s Hiding at Christmas story, including:

a printable version of the story for independent or small group reading

Christmas character descriptions

Christmas character cut-outs

Christmas word cards

Another great follow-up activity to reading the story is the printable Christmas crossword puzzle. Children read clues similar to those in the story and use the resources Christmas character descriptions and Christmas word cards to help complete the crossword.

Christmas poems are fun to write and become personalised verses for the inside of cards or posters to gift to others. This interactive resource is ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard. Choose the type of poem you would like to teach, read the sample poems and use them as a model for writing a poem together. Print out the templates for children to write poems of their own.

Five different poetic forms are included in the resource:

• Acrostic
• Sound poems
• Haiku
• I love poems
• Shape poems.

The poems and templates are also available individually or together as part of the collection Christmas poetry —writing with children.

 

Be sure to consult the resource Writing Christmas poems for additional information and suggestions.

Turn on the Christmas Lights is a Hang Man-style game in which children guess letters to solve the word puzzle. If they can solve the puzzle in ten guesses, they turn on the Christmas lights.

Mathematics

Christmas domino cards can be printed and laminated and used for lessons with the whole class, group work or independent activities.

Hang the Baubles – Repeating patterns is an interactive lesson or series of lessons ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard. The lessons can be used to introduce or review repeating patterns.

Logical thinking and problem solving

Logic puzzles are great for developing thinking skills, and they involve the use of other skills, especially literacy and mathematics, in an integrated way.

Which gift? Playing Secret Santa consists of two logic puzzles; Secret Santa boys and Secret Santa girls. Great for reading comprehension and creative thinking; and for collaboration in a paired activity!

The story children play a pretend game of Secret Santa. They take toys from the shelf, wrap them in Christmas paper, and give them to each other as pretend gifts.

The children’s job is to work out who gave what gift to which child, and what paper it was wrapped in.

The puzzles can be used with the whole class to introduce children to the steps involved in completing logic puzzles. They can be used in conjunction with each other or independently; or use one to introduce children to logic puzzles and provide one for practice.

Alternatively, they make a great independent or buddy activity if children already know how to complete logic puzzles on their own.

The interactive 9 square Christmas puzzle works like any other 9 square puzzle, with 9 puzzle pieces arranged to form a 3 x 3 grid. The picture-pieces on the sides of each square must match to make a whole. Children simply drag and drop the puzzle pieces onto the mat to complete the puzzle. While it is easier than paper or cardboard puzzles as the pieces are already correctly orientated and do not need to be rotated it is still quite challenging to complete and may require a number of attempts.

When used with the whole class or small groups, this puzzle provides opportunities for problem solving, discussion, and development of vocabulary related to position including: left, right, top, bottom, middle, centre, above, below, between.

The printable version of the 9 square Christmas puzzle provides a challenging activity for fast finishers or waiting times, or can be given to students as part of a Christmas gift to use at home. Not just for fun, these puzzles help to develop problem solving, persistence, and a willingness to have a go. Children can discuss alternative placement of pieces and work together to solve the puzzle using positional language.

Other Christmas resources

The cute printable 2022 calendar featuring Santa and Mrs Claus from the Who’s hiding at Christmas? interactive story makes a lovely, but inexpensive, gift for children, their parents, or classroom helpers.

The calendars are also available as printable 2022 calendar bookmarks.

There is also a blank Make it your own 2022 calendar which children can personalise with a photo, drawing or verse.

A set of Christmas gift labels, also featuring the Who’s hiding at Christmas? character are available to download and print.

Fine motor Christmas activities suggests six Christmas themed fine motor activities that can be used both in the classroom and at home. Most are suitable for small groups or independent work and some can even be used to decorate your classroom and share the festive spirit!

You can find all readilearn Christmas-themed lessons and activities here.

Remember to check out the complete readilearn collection of

over 500 teaching resources for the first three years of school

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